Pros:

Cons:

While this might sound like damning with faint praise, Krater is a great demonstration that a game doesn't have to be great to be likable. It may be the action RPG underdog in a summer dominated by Diablo 3 and Torchlight 2, but it brings plenty of ideas to the table, and a quirky sense of humor that gets things off to a great start. It may be another post apocalyptic game, but it's a post-apocalyptic Sweden for a change -- and one that wastes little time doing whatever joke you're thinking of. An IKEA parody, a quest about pickled fish... the only one I didn't see was a trip to a zombie community for a Ghoul With The Dragon Tattoo joke. Though one could well be in there somewhere.

You only get one save, and it's automatic. Lose someone? Too bad!

Unfortunately, when you get past the surface level charm, what awaits is a rickety foundation of confusing ideas and game mechanics that go out of their way to put the 'grind' into 'oh my god this game is a bloody grind.' Take the central concept. You don't control one hero in Krater, but three at once, recruited from various towns. Initially, that's refreshing. They come in multiple roles, from the Bruiser tank to more DPS focused Slayer, and while there are some control issues to deal with (no pause key for instance, and suicidal AI that doesn't understand simple concepts like 'stay in the bubble that's healing you and buffing your defense, you complete arse') the action is a pleasing enough hack-and-slash journey through a pretty overworld, and dark caves of loot and monsters.

On the Job Training

Then you hit Level 5 and realize your crew isn't advancing any more. At all. In fact, all your hard work now has to be thrown away in favor of recruiting a new set of guys who can get to Level 10... and then a third set who can finally hit the cap at Level 15.

Save time. Head to Solside as soon as you can to recruit 0-15 characters.

This is madness. Not only does it strip any satisfaction out of building a party, it completely wastes your time by making every new recruit start as a naked Level 0 who has to be painstakingly and expensively kitted out with up to 15 stat-implants and 5 weapon boosters for both of their attacks. And no, you can't simply yoink them out of your now deposed team -- that would be too fair. Or not hardcore enough. Whichever.

Though Krater will give you new recruits if you lose everyone, you really don't want to be stuck with them.

Grinding through Krater's regular difficulty spikes is annoying enough without having to actively throw your work away -- and just to make it even slower and more annoying, Krater has permadeath. It's a fairly loose implantation (and the Casual difficulty level drops it entirely), where every character can take multiple knockdowns and has to build up injuries to actually die, but still grueling as a default. For starters, not every injury sustained can be healed, whittling down the initially generous seeming buffer. You also only get one save (and one profile), and it's automatic. Though Krater will give you new recruits if you lose everyone, you really don't want to be stuck with them.

Left Click. Left Click. Left Click.

Like the best action-RPGs, combat is moreish in that Pringles-popping way; even if you are restricted to only the plain flavor, and with even that that limited taste dissolving nothing but a generic salty mulch in your mouth long before the end of the can.

Co-op play is planned and coming in a free update, but not yet implemented.

The problem is that while Krater knows the pieces that make a Diablo game work, it doesn't really 'get' it. Its dungeons are full of loot for instance, but it's almost all worthless junk that exists solely to be traded for invisible stat boosters. This means that while your characters do get stronger, you never get to 'feel' particularly powerful -- or see your team visually evolve from a bunch of amateurs into forces to be reckoned with. Likewise, while Krater's world is huge and full of locations, they're almost all the same featureless caves and mines and factories that quickly kill any desire to venture off the beaten track.

There are no cool bosses, nothing that requires more strategy than killing the healers first.

Not helping the mood, even enemies go about their business with a shrug rather than a growl. They're all in small groups, with no big swarms or epic battles or anything to distinguish most of the combat except the area's difficulty level and how quickly you die if you set foot in it before you're ready. A high level rat is still just a rat, and it's a rare foe who gets to do anything even remotely interesting like spit goo instead of just hitting you exponentially harder in the face. There are no cool bosses, nothing that requires more strategy than killing the healers first, and while the final encounter of Krater does present a massive difficulty spike, thematically even he is the kind of bandit chief enemy you'd expect at the end of a tutorial rather than a whole game.

The First Taste Isn't Free

In part, that's because Krater *isn't* really a whole game, but the first third of one, due to be continued via DLC. In practical terms, everything here is just a warm-up... and it feels like it. Most of your time is spent doing random errands with no bigger picture in mind, with intrigue and the most interesting characters only showing at the end. This is far beyond what DLC should be used for, even on a budget priced game. If Fatshark couldn't fit its epic story into this chapter, it really should have come up with one that it could -- or at least, not wasted everyone's time by wrapping it in so much damn padding.

Krater is a game with many problems, most all the more irritating for being specifically added to the formula instead of simply messing it up. It's as unapologetic about its grind as a kid dining on his own snot, with often confusing and hostile mechanics that actively seek to waste as much of your time as possible. It's also a very buggy, unfinished feeling game, from the way the automap vanishes when re-entering already cleared maps, to the presence of characters with names whose parents we have to hope didn't actually think that "civilian_female" was a pretty name for a girl.

In another year, it could even have been an entertaining reminder of why hacking and slashing is fun.

And yet despite all that... it's likable. It doesn't deserve to be, but there's something about its tongue in cheek spirit, the smoothness of its combat and the ease of its grind that makes it at least tolerable enough to finish -- if not look forward to the next chapter. In another year, it could even have been an entertaining reminder of why hacking and slashing is fun. Faced with the choice between it and two high-profile champions of the genre though, there's absolutely no reason to head here for your next hit of leveling and looting.

Spy Guy says: Sure, permadeath can add tension to situations and is the only way to make chopping up your enemies with a laser worth buying that laser, but it's a gamble on both sides. Here, it doesn't pay off, or camouflage the many unfriendly mechanics underneath.